


Carbuncle

by Syntax



Series: Writings of Xarxes [5]
Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Elder Scrolls Lore, Gen, Identity Issues, Knights of the Nine DLC, Mind Meld, Pre-Battle For kvatch, crossposted from tumblr: thespleenoflorkhan, why do shezarrines keep getting their hearts removed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 10:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21613990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syntax/pseuds/Syntax
Summary: Tisiphone Perrif was born with a concave chest.Tisiphone Perrif mantled a demigod whose chest had had something removed after his death.
Series: Writings of Xarxes [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1284701
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Carbuncle

**Author's Note:**

> decided to post my elder scrolls oc writings to ao3 since if i posted the essay i can post about my girls

Tisiphone Perrif was born with a concave chest.

She was one of many to be born with such an affliction in that year. There was a poor harvest the year before, and many young mothers were not able to provide proper nutrition for their children. She was afflicted with rickets in her first years of life, and while her health improved and her bones grew strong, the fist-sized hollow in her chest remained.

She learned to ignore it over time. The hollow didn’t interfere with her life as badly as it did for other children born during her year. She counted herself lucky that she could run as well as the children who were born without one.

As she grew, she took up more than running. How to swing a sword. How to use a shield. How to repair them both. She had an uncle on the Redguard side of the family who laughed joyously when she asked to learn how to fight, and said she must have a shard of the HoonDing in her while he showed her how to make a fist properly. She took to the warrior’s way like a bird took to the air.

The hollow in her chest meant nothing when her entire body was covered in armor. It became just another place to fit padding between her breastplate and her gambeson. Just another quirk. The hollow even saved her life once or twice when a blow that would’ve struck right through the heart of a normal man couldn’t quite make the extra distance. She counted herself lucky.

She took to mercenary work as she grew, then later took up the mantle of a guard, then later the mantle of a pilgrim when a passing prophet spoke to her about the attack on the Chapel of Dibella and the grim mastermind behind it all.

When she took up the mantle of the Divine Crusader, she—_they_—soon found that between brown hair that had started coming in white at the roots after their death and revival in the Priory of the Nine, between once-round pupils now set in the shape of black diamonds, between memories of a body that was and wasn’t theirs and hers, a fist-sized hollow in the center of their chest was probably the least weird thing about them now.

Probably. They weren’t exactly the best person to judge such a thing anymore if the worried reports from the other Knights of the Nine about them wandering the priory grounds at night in an unwaking haze were accurate.

They—she—had not expected such changes before assuming the mantle, as the songs of Saint Pelinal Whitestrake were not often so confusing. But then again, she—they—were equal and greater than they were once before, and perhaps that allowed them a grace period to get things figured out. They traveled the land. They fought with cultists and brigands and remnants of the Aleyids that once plague Cyrodiil. They found glory. They found madness. They found a nation that preferred not to remember the bloody history of one of its greatest heroes as they walked among the people in flesh and blood always and again.

They learned to ignore it. They did. But she alone was not as sturdy as they together, and she alone went out into the Imperial City unarmored one night to drink with the people and perhaps feel like the Imperial instead of the Ada. She felt a glass break upon their back as the riff-raff decided to argue. They returned the glass with a chair smashed overhead, and they did not have the opportunity to return many favors more before the guards arrived and carried them all away.

They counted themself unlucky at first to spend a night intended for relaxation in a prison cell. They counted themself lucky soon after to spend a night intended for penance guarding the Emperor instead.

If the Emperor recognized the shape of their eyes or the white of their hair, he did not say so. It was not often they removed their armor, after all. It was entirely possible he did not know them. But he knew of them, and as he tore the Amulet of Kings from his neck and pressed it into their waiting hands, he knew that they would not let the Covenant that had started with Alessia die with him.

They ran from the Imperial City. They stopped only long enough to retrieve their Relics and to fashion a hiding place for the Amulet, and they were off running to Weynon Priory, to the Grandmaster of the Blades, to their greatest hope of relighting the Dragonfires. They know the Amulet well, gift from detested Akatosh to dearest Alessia that it is, but it is only until the Grandmaster in the priory takes the artifact from their hands and they feel their chest more hollow than ever that they realize it is not only the link with Alessia that causes the red diamond to feel so familiar.

Jauffre examines the facets of Chim-el Adabal with wonder and horror in his eyes, and he does not for one moment consider that he holds their heart in his hands.

He takes it into an adjoining room, and places it within something they cannot see that brings forth the sound of wood scraping on wood, and then he tells them about the Son the Emperor had called them companion to. They want to scream at him. It takes all of their willpower to not to brain him or tear his veins open as they have done so few and so many times before. The cornerstone of Akatosh’s Covenant with Man, the great soulgem taken from the Aleyids, the drop of blood and body that fell from Shezarr at the removal of his heart, and the core of their own very being, and he has seen fit to hide it in a drawer like an erotic publication.

They cannot stand to see their heart so unguarded. So they take it back. They tell themself that they’re only testing the Grandmaster’s security that night, when they remove their armor and sneak in to the priory. They tell themself that they’re only trying to protect the Amulet.

The moment that Arnora’s amulet is switched for the Amulet of the Kings of Glory with Jauffre none the wiser, they know that they can’t lie to themself.

They just wanted their heart back. They just wanted it with them. They need a place to hide it. They know exactly where it should go. They slip out of the Priory building and head back to their own encampment outside.

The Amulet of Kings cannot be worn by those without the blood of dragons, but their affinity for the red diamond at its core will surely allow them a technicality. They retrieve a cord of soft leather from one of their spare boots and wind the necklace’s golden chains around the cord’s length, twisting and twisting until the entire thing was little more than a gaudy pendant hanging from a more sturdy cord, and they hang it loosely around their neck before tucking it into their shirt.

The familiar facets of Chim-el Adabal slot into the hollow of their chest perfectly, as though the red diamond had always been fated to rest there.

**Author's Note:**

> you ever think about how there's a whole other amulet in the game that's a dead ringer for the amulet of kings that you can get in a quest and if you switched the two amulets before the mythic dawn broke in jauffre probably wouldn't know until you told him they stole the wrong one?


End file.
